


Vintage

by prairiecrow



Series: Lethe's Curse [8]
Category: ReBoot (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dinner, Friends to Lovers, Love/Hate, M/M, Memory Alteration, Spiritual Vampirism, Verbal Sparring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:32:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bob finally discovers that Megabyte is an etheric predator, and that the ingestion of blood facilitates the transfer of spiritual energy. This leads to a fairly logical conclusion - and a new permutation in their sexual relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vintage

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Takes place on the world of Lethe, where Bob and Megabyte awoke stripped of their memories, formed an alliance of convenience — and found themselves, one day, profoundly physically changed.   
> 2) This story is set three days after "Possession" (which must be reworked, by the way :)).   
> 3) In the Lethe!verse a clear distinction is made between bedmates (sex without deep attachment), lovers (sex + emotional devotion), the engaged (mandos), and the married (ligos), so when any of those terms are employed in this series they're used with those specific cultural meanings in mind.  
> 4) A picture of Megabyte and Bob at this point in the chronology: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/crowdog66/lethebobmegabyte-1.jpg

There were sages who claimed that having was never as satisfying a thing as wanting, and who were therefore esteemed to be quite wise, but Megabyte considered them fools of the highest order: to plan, to plot and to win a long-sought prize for one's own was, to his mind, the greatest pleasure conceivable. But perhaps this was because he was a predator "in blood and bone", and to track and stalk and run down his prey was second nature to him in every aspect of his existence, whether it be a deer in the forests of C'rosus, an obscure fact in the scholarly literature of Lethe, or the Red King on his Throne of ivory and gold in Omalan. 

Or a young man the colour of a Midsummer sky, with hair like moonlight in a silver mirror and eyes of sharply gleaming amber, who seemed singularly pleased to have been caught at last. Certainly for the past three days Bob had been even more than usually smug, especially in bed, and at this particular moment he was was devoting himself to the task of happily polishing off at least two helpings of everything on Megabyte's dinner table. He had a truly prodigious appetite for such a slim man, but Megabyte supposed that being so consistently difficult must be quite a drain on even his prodigious energies.

Beyond the tall windows of Megabyte's apartment dusk was lowering over the pale towers of Cestiala, but he and Bob sat in a warm island of candlelight and immaculate white table linens and companionable silence. Watching Bob work his way through a thick herdbeast steak with grilled tubers and a greenbud salad, Megabyte sipped his own glass of Benden white wine at his empty place setting and smiled secretly, feeling rather more satisfied than usual himself. He had won, and his victory had been decisive: he'd led this proud hawk to his hand and captured it with a final artistic flourish of interpersonal manipulation, spurring Bob to bridge the distance Megabyte had maintained between them through an episode of carefully manufactured jealousy. 

Not that it had been an especially difficult task. They'd been attracted to each other from the moment they'd arrived in Lethe, a mutual fascination that had expressed itself primarily through the cut-and-thrust of insults, but that magnetic pull had intensified exponentially and turned overtly sexual with the change in their formats shortly after Midwinter; Bob would have willingly succumbed had Megabyte moved in at that point, of that the virus was certain, but they'd been in a precarious position that had not lent itself to forming a strong and stable connection, and Megabyte would settle for nothing less. The new tension between them, encompassing the emotional and the mental as well as the physical, had been growing for nearly three months by the time they'd finally arrived in Cestiala, and Bob had been giving increasingly blatant signals of sexual interest — signals which, typically, could also be read as signs of trust, friendship, mischievous teasing, or simply the desire to annoy his viral overlord as much as possible — which Megabyte had reciprocated, but he had deliberately withheld his sexual favours until he'd seen them both securely settled in the Red King's Court. 

Four nights ago he had at last judged the time to be exactly right, and had played his end-game to perfection. And oh yes, having was at least as satisfying a thing as wanting — particularly when one's possession was so passionate and so inventive whenever their minds and their bodies met, and took such joy in his bondage. Bob might not be under the influence of Megabyte's glamour but the boy was his nonetheless, now more than ever, in a way that filled Megabyte with profound and gloating contentment even in moments like this — or perhaps especially in moments like this, of commonplace actions that cemented the shared nature of their lives.

Bob paused between one mouthful and the next long enough to pick up the thread of conversation that had been interrupted when food had arrived: "Y'know, you ever want me to go with you to one of those classical music performances you're so fond of —"

"Oh no, Bob!" Megabyte affected an attitude of mild dismay. "I wouldn't dream of subjecting you to a whole evening of Ilzona or T'sichov — or heaven forbid, K'k'ira, whose interminable fugues would no doubt put you soundly to sleep."

Bob wrinkled his nose. "Why? Do you think I'm not capable of properly appreciating it?"

"Let's just say that you strike me as a man of action rather than a man of culture."

"Oh, really?" A skeptical look from beneath lowered silver eyebrows. "And what's led you to that conclusion?"

He smirked, deliberately superior. "You chose ale over this fine Benden white, for one thing."

"I may not know much about fancy vintages," Bob retorted, "but even I know that you don't drink white wine with herdbeast steak."

Megabyte chuckled low in his throat. "True," he conceded. "You may lack culture, but you do possess a certain inherent good taste."

"Unlike you," Bob said, and when Megabyte raised a wounded eyebrow ridge the sprite nodded at his empty place setting. "In the physical sense, I mean. I've never seen you eat a single thing."

"Perhaps I prefer to take my meals in private," Megabyte suggested, but it was a play-feint and Bob clearly knew it.

"Not according to the Court's cooks. They say you've never ordered a single meal, or been seen at the Court restaurants. And I know that you didn't eat on the road, even if you did bring back dead deer for the cooking fires — deer that barely had a scratch on them, most of the time." He was sufficiently intent on the pursuit that he actually put down his fork, looking Megabyte directly in the eyes. "When we first came to Lethe the Obvates called you an 'etheric predator'. Care to let me in on what that means?"

He gave the appearance of considering the matter, gazing back at the Guardian without blinking. "I'm really not sure that's any concern of yours."

Bob rolled his amber eyes. "Megabyte, if we're sharing a bed now I'd say it's definitely my business."

"I see. And do you make a habit out of prying into the personal business of all your bedmates?"

"No," the sprite countered, "but we're not bedmates. We're lovers." He sat back in his chair and smiled thinly. "Go ahead and try to deny it, and you'll end up with gravy all over your face."

"You're resorting to threats of assault? With sauces? Needless to say, I'm terrified."

"I'm reminding you who you're dealing with, and that I'll only put up with so much. I'm not one of your Enthralled —"

"Unfortunately," Megabyte muttered in a lie as smooth as any he'd ever told.

"— and I expect to be treated with a certain amount of respect." Judging from the expression on Bob's face, he wasn't buying the protestation. "And part of that involves knowing who, and what, you really are."

Megabyte considered reminding the insolent child that being permitted to share the bed of the Immortal Lord was an honour that had never been accorded to anyone before, and never would be again, but instead he smiled with a sharp edge of teeth and said: "Very well, Bob, since you've asked so nicely… I don't require food or drink because unlike you soft and infirm creatures of flesh and blood, I don't mechanically ingest the chemical energy of things that have been killed for sustenance. I perform the far more elegant and efficient action of drawing the life force directly from the living source."

For a second Bob's silver brows drew together in a puzzled frown; then his eyes widened. "You… drink their blood?"

"Oh, nothing so messy or clumsy as that, although contact with the blood of the victim does speed up the process considerably." He reached out and lightly touched the edge of the serving platter that still held one piece of herdbeast steak with the tips of his claws. "Even something like this, already dead as it is, contains some value as far as I'm concerned, but nothing to compare to the wild, vibrant, invigorating energy of that which lives. Also…" He withdrew his hand with a tiny shudder for dramatic effect. "It's _dead_ , and that which is dead is in the process of decay. I really don't know how you can stand to put such things in your mouth."

Bob was looking at him as if seeing him for the first time… but a tiny smile was playing at one corner of his expressive mouth. "I'm sleeping with a vampire."

"'Etheric predator', if you please. I prefer accuracy over melodrama." 

"But… you drink wine," Bob pointed out.

"Only for pleasure, I assure you." He picked up his glass again and held it to the light, allowing the glow of the candles to play in its clear yellow depths. "Wine is the distillation of an entire culture, Bob: the quality of the land, the technical skill of its citizens, the care they take in their endeavours, the qualities they value most…" He took a sip and savoured it for a moment before letting it slide down his throat. "All present in a single glass."

"And what can you tell about the Bendens from that?" Bob queried, reaching for his own goblet of ale and taking a hearty swallow.

Megabyte studied his beverage more critically. "That they're a subtle people, but not overly concerned with deeper matters. I suspect that they prefer to delight in the joys randomly tossed up on the surface of existence rather than make the necessary effort to systematically investigate the more esoteric elements of philosophy and art." Another sip. "And, that they prefer the Jornal grape over any other cultivar."

Bob shook his head, still smiling, and went back to carving his steak. "Y'know, maybe one of these days I'll stop being surprised by all the strange odds and ends of things you know." 

"It's what comes of reading books, Guardian. You might want to try it sometime."

"Smartass _catlana_ ," Bob muttered with a roll of his eyes, but his irritation was relatively good-natured, and when they repaired to bed after dinner he confined himself to a persuasive murmur against Megabyte's throat: "Try not to drain me totally dry, okay?" 

"Oh, I will," Megabyte purred, "but not in _that_  sense," and he proceeded to make good on his promise, without informing the sprite that he was in fact perfectly safe: Megabyte could no more draw spiritual energy from him through physical contact (no matter how intimate) than he could enthral him, for reasons unknown and quite possibly unknowable.

It wasn't until almost ten days later that Megabyte discovered that Bob had been devoting considerable thought to the matter of ethric predation — and more importantly, to its potential impact on their relationship. And what his lover had come up with turned out to be a pleasurable revelation indeed... 

[TO BE CONTINUED…]

**Author's Note:**

> Catlana: A trained scholar.


End file.
